Dragonfly
by DamianDrako
Summary: Humans have come from very far to build and shape the Verse into what it has become. Despite all their progress, man has not yet traveled faster than light. Little does anyone expect, the Verse is on the brink of impossible change. There's a new crew flying the skies, and in they've got just what man needs: the impossible. The sky won't be conquered by a bird, but by a dragonfly.


There were many fairy tales out there, in our corner of the 'Verse. Some 'em were pretty damn farfetched, but there was always that one out of a hundred you'd glance over the first time and just throw away into the pile with the rest of the dusty ol' books you found laying around in the attic. After a while though, you'd start thinking about it, about what it meant and what the heck was even going. Then, you'd start remembering the words, the characters, the plot, and finally, when your head just couldn't take it anymore, when it felt like a tornado of thoughts tore right through your simple, undisturbed mind, you'd go back up there and find that book again.

I was eight when I first read a book like that. We were on some place called Haven, my folks and I; no idea why though. All I remember was meeting this one man with really dark skin and grey hair on his head. He wore some sort of blue-color garment, but it was so dusty I couldn't even tell at first. I asked momma why his skin was the color of chocolate, and she smacked me square in the face. I remember seeing her turn redder than a tomato as she swiftly apologized, but the man just stood there and laughed. We went inside a bit later, and he handed me a bunch of books.

"You like fairy tales, young man?"

"Of course I do! Who doesn't?!"

His face lit up with a smile unlike anything I'd ever seen before. While my parents were talking with him somewhere else, I spent the rest of my evening curled up in a corner with those books and a lantern. I remember it looked very strange at first glance. He told me that lantern was unlike any other, that it was lit by a different light: a softer, quieter shine.

"The shine of a firefly," he said.

That was the night I found the story I'd been looking for. Perhaps I'd been searching for it all my life, and I had only now realized what I was looking for. It surely felt that way, because I spent the next few days inside another world. "Fairy tales aren't real" is what many adults have tried to tell me, but I don't believe that's true. When I look out the window at night, I count the stars, and I imagine all the fairies, elves, goblins, and dragons living around each and every one of those suns. Around this tiny little Verse, people keep saying there's no one out there. They keep telling me that the sky is as empty as my head, and even if it weren't, nobody could travel faster than light.

See, that's where they're wrong.

There was this place I loved going to when I was little. Although its name and location I've long forgotten, I knew I'd always remember the pond. Every now and then, I sat under the shade of the weeping tree with my textbooks, papers, and pens, and I would simply finish my work in listening to the silent sobbing of nature. Whenever I turned to face the pond, I always saw a dragonfly scinder the stillness of the water. It parted the pool with every flight, even if every brushstroke only remained for less than a moment before fading away into the stillness from which it came. So, why was the dragonfly still going back? What did it want to paint in vain?

I approached the pond, curious and a little mystified, and in the rippling water, I saw something I could not explain. It was like I saw the different layers of the small pool, like if man were to observe the various layers of its own flesh and skin. I looked up, but the dragonfly had already gone. I failed to hear its buzzing, yet ripples shook my entire being. I was left shaken by these unexpected tremors, as the wind carried to my ear the flap of the insect's four wings.

The speed of a dragonfly is no feat one can easily shun. Small in nature, they don their four wings with great pride in their almost demonic eyes and soar through the sky with their tails, thinner than needles, pointed high up at the heavens. It was hard to explain what I had felt then, but one thing was clear to me.

The great sky wouldn't be conquered by a bird, but rather, by a dragonfly.


End file.
